P s 

35 a3 

^^^3 Relishes of Rhyme 



^ 





Copyright N° J lQi_ 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSfT. 



Kelisljes of Mliijmt 



JAMES LINCOLN 




BOSTON: RICHARD G. BADGER 

llie Gorliam Press 
1903 



Copyright 1903, by James Lincoln. 
All Rights Reserved. 



THE LIBKARY Of 

CONGRESS, 
Two Copifiu RasHveo 

OiTAes ^XXa Ko. 






Printed at The Gbrham Press. 
Boston, U.S.A. 



DEDICATION 

Gentle Janet, to you alone I dare 

Inscribe the songs that, but for you, were gone 
As gusty leaves across autumnal lawn, 

Or shepherd's troubled pipings down the air. 



As through the Field of Song I went, 
An alien, yet with lingering tread, 

These few rough leaves I plucked, of scent 
Pungent, not sweet, and blotched with red. 



FOREWORD 

The author is bound to acknowledge the courtesy of the 
several magazines that have permitted him to include in 
this volume poems which they had bought and printed. 
The first of the sonnets, "To England," originally ap- 
peared in The Atlantic Monthly; the second, under the 
title " A Rumor Goes,"/'i"n The New England Magazine, 
which also published the sonnet " Betrayed." The lyric, 
" Pigeon Post," was first issued in the The Chautauqican, 
and "Blood-Road" in The Churchman. In general, how- 
ever, these verses, as commenting upon current events, 
were printed, when they were printed at all, in news- 
papers, more often in The Spri^igfield Republican, occasion- 
ally in The Boston Transcript. It will be evident to the 
reader, if so excellent a personage exist, that they were 
suggested, in most instances, by cablegrams from South 
Africa as given to the American press during the Boer 
war. 



COl^TENTS 



PRELUDES 
To England 
The War Spirit 
Remarks from Uncle Sam 
Kruger and Victoria 
Prayers in Camp 
Puzzlehead 
Glory . . . . 

CABLEGRAMS 



Dundee .... 

An Anachronism 

A Veteran of Elandslaagte 

Seven from Eight 

Nicholson's Nek 

" On to Pretoria ! " . 

Noblesse Oblige 

The Black Watch 

Foes ..... 

The Fifth Brigade at Colenso 

An Only Son 

An Incident of the Siege . 

Ambushed 

With the Compliments of the Season 

A Woman's Chronicle of 1000 

Blood-Road 



POSTLUDES 

A Question of Identity 

A British Bargain 

Israel in the Wilderness 

Court-Martialed 

Pigeon Post 

Man and Woman : Boer and Br 

Betrayed .... 

7 



iton 



PAGES 

11 
13 
14 
15 
16 
17 
18 



21 
22 

23 
24 
25 

26 
27 
28 
29 
30 
32 
33 
34 
35 
36 
38 



43 
43 
44 
45 
46 
47 
52 



PRELUDES 



TO ENGLAND 
I 

Who would trust En<:^land, let hiui lift his C3'es 
To Nelson, cohunned o'er Trafalgar Square, 
Her hieroglyph of DUTY, written where 

The roar of traflfic hushes to the skies ; 

Or mark, while Paul's vast shadow softly lies 

On Gordon's statued sleep, how praise and 

prayer 
Flush through the frank young faces cluster- 
ing there 

To con that kindred rune of SACRIFICE. 

O England, no bland cloud-ship in the blue. 
But rough oak plunging on o'er perilous jars 

Of reef and ice, our faith will follow you 

The more for tempest roar that strains your 
spars 

And splits your canvas, be your helm but true, 
Your courses shapen by the eternal stars. 



11 



II 

But — God forbid ! — if lust of yellow ore, 

The pride of power, the trumpet's fanfaronade, 
Deform your March of Progress to a raid, 

And with Injustice stalking on before 

You usher Justice in, then all the more 
Because we love you, are we sore afraid, 
Yet not of your defeat, whose hearts are made 

From stoutest clay that ever planet bore. 

We fear your victory, if, truth to tell. 

Your cause lack God. Though blood your ar- 
teries spill 
Is earth's most precious, what shall parallel 
Our poverty if good confounds with ill 
And right with wrong, if your own stroke should 
kill 
That great world-conscience you have fostered 
well? 



12 



THE WAR SPIRIT 

The papers read like Kiplint:^, 

The thrilling bugles call, 
Old Odin falls to tippling 

In glad Valhalla hall. 

As he quaffs the skull-wrought chalice 
His war-maids toss their spears, 

The aurora borcalis 

Of our enlightened years. 

Above the pallid steeples 

Impartially he gloats 
On his two Norland peoples 

Tearing each other's throats. 

"My were- wolves fled the forest 
Nigh twenty centuries back. 

But when my thirst is sorest, 
I whistle to the pack, 

" And blood runs, hot and ruddy, 

More delicately spiced 
For scents of town and study 

And tears of their White Christ." 



13 



REMARKS FROM UNCLE SAM 

" I can't throw stones," sighed Uncle Sam, 

As meek as any mouse. 
" I can't throw stones," sighed Uncle Sam, 

" Whatever comes to pass." 
" T can't throw stones," sighed Uncle Sam, 

" I've built my own new house 
— Imperial style, not pebble-proof — 

Of Philippino glass. 

" Birds of a feather flock together. 

John Bull, he used me well. 
Birds of a feather flock together. 

One's cousin must be right. 
Birds of a feather flock together. 

It riles me when folks tell 
How our Anglo-Saxon plumage 

Is rubbing off the white. 

" Ain't we the Christian nations 

That head the march to Zion? 
Ain't we the Christian nations 

That calculate to love 
Our neighbors' countries as our own? 

The eagle and the lion 
Will now zualk out to lu7icheon 

Off" the lambkin and the dove." 



14 



KRUGER AND VICTORIA 

There are two old faces play 

Peek-a-boo through the smoke. 

The one is grim and gray, 

Rough as a mask of oak, 

A seasoned bit of board 

That might break a British sword. 

The other, more aged yet. 
With a woman's motion peers, 
A weary face afret 
With love and doubt and tears, 
But brows above that frown 
In shadow of a crown. 



15 



PRAYERS IN CAMP 

We praise Thee for all Thy mercies, 

Our weal and our neighbors' harms, 
And especially for the reverses 

Befalling the British arms. 
Thou hast set up pride in the pillory. 

The heart of the spoiler faints, 
While the best of modern artillery 

Speaks for Thy simple saints. 

We acknowledge Thy gracious Providence, 

In that we passed our guns 
As " agricultural implements " 

Through the port of those haughty ones, 
That their hands have ground our axes, 

Their oil has fed our lamp. 
That their Uitlander taxes 

Have built the Transvaal camp. 

Chastise their greed and their vanity. 

Their trespass against our rights, 
An insult to all humanity, 

A term which means the Whites. 
We, too, were not given to chaffer 

With Hottentots, Zulus and such, 
But it's one thing to slaughter the Kaffir 

And another to rob the Dutch. 



16 



PUZZLEHEAD 

What if Right malces Might, 
Not Might makes Right, 
And God, the All or the Nought, 
Is less extinct than we thought ! 

Those Dutchmen say, — but they're fools 
Who will not fight by rules. 
(Is the art of war complete 
In knowing how to beat?) 

Yet yonder upon their knees 
They make my marrow freeze. 
Though, faith, I don't know why. 
Britannia rules the sky. 

A prayer-meeting ! What has that 
To do with a battle ? Scat ! 
Lyddite shell makes a queer amen. 
Was Jehovah joking then? 



17 



GLORY 

At the crowded gangway they kissed good-bye. 

He had half a mind to scold her. 
An officer's mother and not keep dry 

The epaulet on his shoulder ! 



He had forgotten mother and fame, 

His mind in a blood-mist floated, 
But when reeling back from carnage they came. 

One told him : " You are promoted ! " 

His friend smiled up from the cursed red sand. 

The look was afar, eternal, 
But he tried to salute with his shattered hand : 

" Room now for another colonel ! " 



Again he raged in that lurid hell 

Where the country he loved had thrown him. 
" You are promoted ! " shrieked a shell. 

His mother would not have known him. 



18 



CABLEGRAMS 



DUNDEE 

" My knight has fought a galhint fight. 

Dundee, Dundee ! 
I'll wing him word of dear delight, 
For pale he walks in shadow-sight, 
His weary eyes with slumber bound 
And the Union Jack about him wound, 
As seeking love and me." 

Ah, why should foeman flash reply 

And from Dundee? 
" He lies beneath the Afric sky, 
As many a hero more must lie, 
Nor wifely message on his breast 
Can lull that soldier heart to rest. 

While cannon shake the lea." 

O war ! will gold repay us for 

Dundee, Dundee? 
And if so rich the firstlings are 
Of thy red-reaping scimitar. 
How will thy granaries over-run, 
Till shuddering stars and solemn sun 
Tell God what things they see ! 



21 



AN ANACHRONISM 

" Pray use my ambulance. Happy to lend," 
Qiioth General White, as if to a friend. 
The Dutchman made a courteous bend. 

" Burghers ! " called Joubert. "Blankets here 

And plenty of water ! I sadly fear 

These wounded British have need of cheer." 

Wide grinned the black-mouthed howitzers all 
To see those queerest of enemies fall 
To pouring the balsam after the ball. 



22 



A VETERAN OF ELANDSLAAGTE 

Laughing from the hurly-burly 

Came the Gordon, with a snick 
In his neck, and with his curly 

Chestnut mop less bright and thick 
Where a ball had scored her tally. 

Ear-lap gone, a reddened shoe. 
And, no case for shilly-shally, 

His right arm shot four times through. 

Just before the youngster suffers 

Sponge and saw, he laughs again. 
" Deil-ma-care ! If yond auld duffers 

Trow they spilt my parritch when 
All their bonny lead they landed 

Up this sleeve, they dinna ken 
I've the luck to be left-handed." 

Kruger might have kissed him then. 



23 



SEVEN FROM EIGHT 

Add seven dead fools to a vagabond, 

And the sum is eight Dutcli heroes. 
That's the arithmetic up beyond, 
Where our lords of gold and of diamond 
Alost commonly count as zeroes. 

'Twas already a murder without remorse, 

When the eight ran out on the level, 
As blithe as bairns at play in the gorse, 
And dared the Imperial White Horse, 
Who gave them back the devil. 

But the louts had covered their troop, which thus 

Was shifted to safe position, 
While into the eight that courted us, 
We had been pouring an over-plus 

Of excellent ammunition. 

One staggered to shelter, amid our cheers 

That failed to wake the seven. 
For whom, though my heart is hard with years, 
I had almost shed a soldier's tears. 

Almost believed in heaven. 

This little incident put us out 

Worse than a Dutch tactician, 
For the more these Boers are humane, devout, 
Patriots, martyrs, the more they flout 

Our civilizing mission. 

24 



NICHOLSON'S NEK 

We do not look for flattery, 
We men who lost our battery 
And reserves of ammunition through panic of the 
mules, 
But we deprecate the jollity 
With which the world's frivolity 
Will air its wit at our expense in club-house 
vestibules. 

We've muffed it past all charity, 
But spare us your hilarity. 
Us falling here by groups and squads beneath 
their fiery lead. 
As helpless as a nunnery, 
Hemmed in by awful gunnery 
That tears our flanks, our front, our rear, and 
pours from overhead. 

We've nothing more to say on it, 
Content to fix the bayonet 
And blazon comedy with blood, since so our 
fortune rules. 
The jest begins to weary us. 
We hope that death is serious, 
Even the death of Englishmen discomfited by 
mules. 



26 



"ON TO PRETORIA!" 

All hats off in Pretoria, 

While the British prisoners pass ! 
A new translation of gloria 

Is taught in Oom Paul's class. 

A Dutch translation oi glo7'ia^ 

But can London better the phrase? 

All heads bared in Pretoria, 

While the conquered wend their ways ! 



26 



NOBLESSE OBLIGE 

Premier Marquis of England, 

With eager Methuen he came ; 
Premier Marquis of England, 

And never a son to his name. 
Paying his debt to England, 

Against the bullets he stood. 
Ah, Premier Marquis of England, 

The Modder likes noble blood. 

Fifteenth Marquis of Winchester ! 

The first of his gallant race. 
The earliest Marquis of Winchester, 

Was Lord Treasurer unto his Grace 
Edward the Sixth, nor Winchester 

Has been wanting in duty since. 
The fifteenth Marquis of Winchester 

Would not be the first to wince. 

Sweet be his slumber in Africa, 

As in his ancestral vault ! 
Whoever has sinned against Africa, 

The soldier is not at fault. 
Let Chamberlain answer for Africa 

At the Bar all burning white, 
But in India, Egypt, Africa, 

Is the fallen soldier rieht. 



27 



THE BLACK WATCH 

They had trained us into their treasons, 
And their withering welcome of lead 

Might have been the best of reasons 
Why ano'ther brigade had fled, 

But we Highlanders have our fancies, 

Our glamour of old romances, 
And so we lie dying and dead. 

We make dour faces together. 

Though we're not the lads for a fuss. 

But it's hardly like lounging on heather 
To writhe in your life-blood, thus. 

No touch of heather and gowan, 

No glint of the red-berried rowan 
Ever again for us. 

The cimning of this land's breeding 

Passes the wit of men. 
Our general — yonder he's bleeding — 

Marshalled us on as a hen 
Might cluck her brood through the shadows, 
Over the dawn-dewy meadows, 

Down to the fox's den. 

God rest him ! 'Twas never an error 
To follow a glorious chief. 



28 



If a man's conquered only by terror, 
Let Britain be proud in her grief, 
For the last Boer bullet shall whistle 
Ere we change the sturdy Scotch thistle 
For the sign of the aspen leaf. 

From dusk to dusk roars the battle. 
Till the pulses cease in our wrists, 

The rifles muffle their rattle, 

And our eyes are drowsy with mists. 

One thought is the last of life's sorrow. 

The thought of our women to-morrow, 
When the War Oflice reads out the lists. 



FOES 

The rifle was missing from off its pegs, 

But the old Dutch clock, its face gone white. 

Ticked the second its owner's legs 
Were shot away in Stormberg fight. 

The ghastly dawn of that bitter day 

— Could it scare the hound in an English hall 
That he howled as if, half a world away. 

He had heard the thud of his master's fall ? 

As each man writhed in his dying throes. 

Hand gripped hand on the blood-soaked sod, 

And thus, like brothers, those quiet foes 
Departed this life to the mercy of God. 

29 



THE FIFTH BRIGADE AT COLENSO 

It was the Irishmen made the advance, 

— Black eyes, grey eyes, all on the dance — 

Irishmen daring for England. 
The Dublins they led, with a laugh and a cheer, 
Through the blue bright morning that cost them 
dear, 

Irishmen dying for England. 

In front, the plain to the curving flood, 
With the hills beyond whose price was blood, 

— In front, the honor of England. 
Never an enemy there to be seen. 
Yet woe for the shamrock, woe for the green 

Bathed in the red of England ! 

For those tranquil hills had begun to pour 
A rifle-rattle and cannon-roar 

Into the path of England. 
Most hateful of all that horrible song. 
The fierce little quick-fire's Bong-bong-bong 

Crackled its laugh at England. 



30 



Here drops a Patrick, yonder a Mike, 
A Rory, a Dennis, a Larry, alike 

Gasping in dust for England. 
Long and slirill shall the Banshee keen 
On the coming night in the island green, 

The island that bleeds for England. 

While the dying sobbed and the wounded crept. 
On to the bank of the river swept 

Irishmen fighting for England, 
And for full five hours of shot and sun 
They held the ground that their valor won, 

Irishmen winning for England. 



31 



AN ONLY SON 

" This will mean the Victoria Cross," 
His comrades proudly said. 
They were sick with counting their loss, 
As they sat by his rough camp-bed, 
And were glad to praise, instead. 
The son of the coming Chief. 

'Twas " Bobs" that would bring relief, 
The hero of Kandahar. 
" I will sharpen his sword," said Grief, 
Who had grown so great with war 
That her shadow, stretching far, 
Dimmed Britain's fields and fells. 

So the whitening mouth, that tells 
To the last how he failed to save 
The guns, drops wide, and the shells 
Hiss over his idle grave. 
But the great sea roars like drums, 
For beware ! the Father comes. 



32 



AN INCIDENT OF THE SIEGE 

He was only an entomologist, 

Only wanted a fly in his fist. 

Let Cecil Rhodes nurse a diamond whim, 

South African moths were enough for him. 

He might have left Ladysmith at the first, 
But for all his science, he had a cursed 
English grit of his own, as he told his cat, 
And he wasn't milksop enough for that. 

So he just stayed on with Grimalkin there. 
Writing his book on the cellar stair, 
And laughing to see Tabby's back go up 
At every jar of a brutal Krupp. 

If one could trace the myriad strains 
That went to the moulding of that man's brains 
Through patient centuries, one might find 
The infinite cost of a master-mind. 

But shrapnel is shrapnel ; it does n't choose. 
Poor Puss was rubbing against his shoes 
When he came to the door, and by Long Tom ! 
I swear she spat at that fizzing bomb. 

Well ! There was mincemeat enough to please 

The bloodiest Boer on the stiffest knees. 

He only said : " Look after my cat," 

But our friend the powder had seen to that. 



33 



AMBUSHED 

Over the lonesome African plain 

The stars look down, like eyes of the slain. 

A bumping ride across gullies and ruts, 
Now a grumble and now a jest, 
A bit of profanity jolted out, 

— Whist ! 

Into a hornet's nest ! 

Curse on the scout ! 

Long-bearded Boers rising out of the rocks, 

Rocks that already are crimson-splashed, 

Ping-ping of bullets, stabbings and cuts. 

As if hell hurtled and hissed, 

— Then, muffling the shocks, 
A sting in the breast, 

A mist, 

A woman's face down the darkness flashed. 

Rest. 

All as before, save for still forms spread 
Under the boulders dripping red. 

Over the lonesome African plain 

The stars look down, like eyes of the slain. 



34 



WITH THE COMPLIMENTS OF THE 
SEASON 

(During the holidays the Boers besieging Ladjsmith 
shot into the city shells containing plum-puddings.) 

No fear of hoax. A Dutchman jokes 

In earnest, as he fights, 
And every shell they 've plugged so well 

To Christmas cheer invites. 
Plum-pudding cold! What bard has told 

Siege of such hard condition 
That those shut in by cannon din 

Devour the ammunition ? 

Their neighbor wit a plan has hit 

Bids fair to suit the czar 
And ruin quite thine appetite, 

Old greedy God of War. 
Phun-pudding hot! A lucky shot I 

Henceforth rude lead displeases. 
Let's fight it out in one grand bout 

Of puddings and Dutch cheeses ! 



35 



A WOMAN'S CHRONICLE OF 1900 

Spion Kop ! 

The hill was won, the hill was won. 

What matters that? I only know 

My Louis perished — not alone. 

Full many an English mother's son 

Joined in his parting groan. 

But he, my first-born, lying so 

In the awful zone 

Of death, close up to their firing-line. 

Riddled with shot, that boy of mine ! 

Eight bullets struck him ere his cry was done, 

His cry for water — his — who dug our well 

Where dogs and cattle drank the day he fell. 

Paardeberg ! 

I smell it yet, that carrion pit. 

That hole of slaughter in their ring 

Of fire. May God remember it ! 

My baby, breathing stench for air. 

Died on the seventh day. 

I could not hear her father's prayer 

For the thundering 

Of their sixty guns, while we scooped her grave, 

His latest prayer, for Modder's wave 

Had swirled his lyddite-shattered corse away 

Before to death's pallid familiars came 

A worse companionship, defeat and shame. 



36 



With De Wet 

My twelve-year-old, my last of all, 

Is riding now beneath the stars, 

My rosy Jan, of frame too small, 

Of soul too innocent for wars, 

Riding to-night, unless 

Already the mimosa hides 

A rigidness 

That was my child. No, no, he rides 

With bold De Wet, to vex them 'mid 

Their homestead bonfires. Wind, that bearest on 

Thy wings the wailing of a people gone, 

Shall e'er our hatred perish ? God forbid ! 



37 



BLOOD-ROAD 

The Old Year groaned as he trudged away, 
His guilty shadow black on the snow, 

And the heart of the glad New Year turned grey 
At the road Time bade him go. 

" O Gaffer Time, is it blood-road still? 

Is the noontide dark as the stormy morn ? 
Is man's will yet as a wild beast's will ? 

When shall the Christ be born? " 

He laughed as he answered, grim Gaffer Time, 
Whose laugh is sadder than all men's moan. 

" That name rides high on our wrath and crime. 
For the Light in darkness shone. 

" And thou, fair youngling, wilt mend the tale? " 
The New Year stared on the misty wold, 

Where at foot of a cross all lustrous pale 
Men raged for their gods of gold. 

" Come back. Old Year, with thy burden bent. 

Come back and settle thine own dark debt." 
" Nay, let me haste where the years repent. 

For I 've seen what I would forget." 



38 



" And I, the first of a stately train. 
The tramp of a century heard behind, 

Must I be fouled with thy murder-stain? 
Is there no pure path to find ? " 

The Old Year sneered as he limped away 
To the place of his penance dim and far. 

The New Year stood in the gates of day, 
Crowned with the morning star. 



39 



POSTLUDES 



A QUESTION OF IDENTITY 

You 've made a bloody bad pother 

Over there on the veldt, St. George, 
You blustering, beautiful fellow, 

Who would hammer the globe on your forge. 
I love your blue eyes and the yellow 

Wave of your hair, but your sword 
— Has it dinged for a dragon your brother, 

St. Michael, Beloved of the Lord? 

A BRITISH BARGAIN 

Tears, tears, tears ! 
Rare tears that heart-break yields ! 

Bleeding tears. 
The cost of diamond fields ! 

Tears for stones ! 
The dull earth gendered those ; 

These, men's groans, 
And women's ceaseless woes. 

Tears, tears, tears ! 
In mines of anguish wrought ! 

Christ, what tears 
For diamonds dearly bought ! 



43 



ISRAEL IN THE WILDERNESS 

A pillar cloudy-dim 
By day, and fire-pillar by night, no more 
Than these to be our witness unto Him 
Who moves before ! 

The cherubim that reach 
Their golden wings above the mercy-seat, 
Look sadly through the incense each to each, 
But kiss His feet. 

Perchance our little ones 
Shall see the Promised Land mysterious, 
But we must lie where desert winds and suns 
Still trouble us. 

Yet though the evil came 
In lieu of good, thistles for cinnamon, 
We trust His presence in the cloud and flame, 
And follow on. 



LofC. 



44 



COURT-MARTIALED 

Young blood, as wild as flame, 
Prompted the angry thrust. 

He died the death of shame 
And left dishonored dust. 

Bewildered by surcease 

Of that last strangling strife, 

The soul in sudden peace 
Beheld the Book of Life. 

On one clear page he saw 
A strange initial, red. 

" The rubric of God's law," 
His quiet angel said. 

" The kind Eternities, 

O child so sore perplexed. 

Will draw thee to their knees 
And teach thee noble text. 

" The gold-leaf and the blue 
Shall lovingly combine 

To bring this crimson hue 
Within the fair design. 



45 



" The Artist is not mocked." 
But here the spirit turned. 

White dreams about him flocked. 
Keen longings in him burned. 

His answer, hushed with awe, 
Hardly the angel heard. 

" The rubric of God's law ! 
Teach me His perfect word." 



PIGEON POST 

White wing, white wing, 
Lily of the air. 

What word dost bring, 
On whose errand fare? 

Red word^ 7'ed ivord, 
Snoxvy phimes abhor. 

I, Chrisfs oxvn bird.^ 
Do the work of xvar. 



46 



MAN AND WOMAN : BOER AND BRITON 
I 

God set the waste between them, 

And the flame, 
But the stars had watched and seen them, 

How they came. 

Whirlwind and desert burning, 

Thunder- wrack, 
Could hinder not their yearning, 

Blind their track. 

God piled the seas, in beryl 

Wall on wall, 
But their hearts, that laughed at jDcril, 

Leapt them all. 

Icebergs, fiercely riding 

Arctic stream, 
Sought and missed their gliding 

Sails of dream. 

God called the hills together. 

Rings on rings. 
But they wrought from sky and heather 

Purple wings. 



47 



Over peaks snow-sheeted 

Blithe they went, 
And God stood defeated, 

Well content. 

II 

Then Time came forth, with malice 

And with fleers, 
And he fashioned them a chalice 

Of the years. 

Covetous and cruel 

Wonder-smith, 
Mined their strength for jewel, 

Drew the pith 

From the ruddy flower 

Of their spring. 
Crushed their golden hour 

Qiiivering. 

Yet he dimmed all glitter 

Of the cup, 
And with juices bitter 

Filled it up. 

Oh, they thirsted for it, 
Liquor rare ! 



48 



Merrily they bore it 
To the air ; 

Mocked his low cave-portal, 

And above 
Drank to the immortal 

Joy of love. 

Ill 

Life set a snare between them, 

Strong as pain. 
But the stars had watched and seen them 

Break the chain. 

Goblins forged it wary, 

Under sea, 
But the sword of fairy 

Cut them free. 

Life gave to her a labor. 

And to him, 
And neither saw his neighbor 

For the dim 

Dust-clouds from the hammer 

And the stone. 
But beneath the clamor 

Crept a tone. 



49 



Life searched the poison garden 

For a lie 
That waved its branches hard on 

Cloud and sky, 

Daring Truth to pluck it, 

Roots in hell, 
But the lightning struck it. 

And it fell. 

IV 

Death loved them for their valor, 

And his torch 
Beckoned them through Gates of Pallor, 

Ivory Porch. 

But the tender shadow^ 

Hid her face, 
And the amaranth meadow 

Lost his trace. 

Where the spirits glisten 

And rejoice. 
They drew apart to listen 

For a voice. 



50 



Pearl and rubies seeded 

In their dress 
Vexed them for a needed 

Preciousness. 

They, for starry tires, 

Begged the boon 

Of their old desires, 

Pilgrim shoon, 

And passed the blue pavilions, 
Scorned the sun, 

Amid Death's shining millions 
Seeking one. 



51 



BETRAYED 

The nightmare melts at last, and London wakes 

To her old habit of victorious ease. 

More men, and more, and more for over seas. 
More guns, until the giant hammer breaks 
That patriot folk whom even God forsakes. 

Shall not Great England work her will on these, 

The foolish little nations, and appease 
An angry shame that in her memory aches? 

But far beyond the fierce-contested flood. 

The cannon-planted pass, the shell-torn town, 

The last wild carnival of fire and blood, 

Beware, beware that dim and awful Shade, 

Armored with Milton's word and Cromwell's 
frown, 

Affronted Freedom, of her own betrayed ! 



62 



NOV 23 1903 



